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Dancer
Stick and Shock rounds do the same damage no matter what you fire them from. This means that a light or holdout pistol does far more damage with S&S rounds than with any other round type (even against nonconductive 6 it's slightly better than ex-ex), with the added advantages of nonlethality and tetanising people. In your opinion is loading your backup weapon with S&S rounds a twinky decision to be frowned on, or a logical in-character choice?
Ironfish
Honestly? Even as a GM, They seems like a logical sensible choice. A bit expensive, sure, but well worth it. I was somewhat disappointed that none of my players noticed them. I think when I get the game going again, the Cops are going to carry the stuff. Might get the team thinking.
sunnyside
S&S is just one of those things where I just wonder what they were thinking.

Actually some people here might know that.

Anyway you always hear people talking about machine pistols with S&S. Occasionally in regards to getting around spirit immunities.

Still, in game I guess we must assume that the "shock" part of the bullet is smaller than a .22 and the rest is just the bulk that lets it travel further. So sure, load it up.

It does have the disadvantage that it can't punch through obstructions.

Personally though I set the gametime a little earlier so it's back in the narcoject days.
Dancer
QUOTE (sunnyside)
S&S is just one of those things where I just wonder what they were thinking.

The description as-written seems really stupid for anything smaller than a shotgun round to me, so in my mind they're essentially the same as the capacitor darts fired by a Pulsar only propelled by cordite rather than gas.
Arz
IT's just the same as having your gun freaks carrying a gun loaded with ap, frag, ex, and rub. That's four guns to get noticed but hey, you've got it all covered if you bling-bling some grenades as fashionable accessories.

Seriously this is why different groups might have the armor add-ons to pretty well stop these from working. Anyone that carries a stun weapon probably has beefy protection from it. Accidents happen, and the police especially cover themselves from being taken down by their own weapons
Ravor
Also its not nearly so bad once you rule that -1/2 AP doesn't affect Immunity to Normal Weapons and that mundane elemental attacks count as 'mundane'.
Moon-Hawk
QUOTE (Dancer)
QUOTE (sunnyside @ Jun 20 2007, 02:50 PM)
S&S is just one of those things where I just wonder what they were thinking.

The description as-written seems really stupid for anything smaller than a shotgun round to me, so in my mind they're essentially the same as the capacitor darts fired by a Pulsar only propelled by cordite rather than gas.

I use a house-rule that S&S is only available for shotguns.
It still gets used, but doesn't make tasers and all other ammo types useless.
Matsu Kurisu
We have removed Stick n Shock from the game via house rule.
Its TOOO unbalancing and removes the point of having tasers etc
Jack Kain
You all do know they nerfed the damage down to 4S(e) in errata?


And S&S doesn't use half AP it uses half impact armor. if a creatures armor isn't described has having impact armor. Simply armor. No effect.
FrankTrollman
I rule that taser weapons do not deal extra damage for achieving net hits and are a "touch weapon". That really takes them out of the hands of experienced gun bunnies and puts them into the hands of grandmothers and beat cops where they belong.

-Frank
Moon-Hawk
QUOTE (Jack Kain)
You all do know they nerfed the damage down to 4S(e) in errata?

I was not aware of that. Is there an errata past 1.5?
sunnyside
QUOTE (Jack Kain)
You all do know they nerfed the damage down to 4S(e) in errata?


And S&S doesn't use half AP it uses half impact armor. if a creatures armor isn't described has having impact armor. Simply armor. No effect.

I'm not so sure about either of those.
WearzManySkins
In version 1.5 of erratta, it has no mention of stick and shock.

4th printing of the BBB has the damage as 6S(e) half AP using Impact armor. Tasers are shown as half armor but does give any type.

I agree Jack Cain then it only halves the impact armor, does not affect Immunity to Normal Weapons.

But what if the target was wearing a armored vest 6/4 with rating 6 nonconductivity, would that mean against SnS that the impact rating would be 8 or 10?

Another question, most taser weapons in the BBB only only fire either SS or SA. Weapons loaded with SnS firing Burst or Full, do they gain the benefit of such bursts ie increased damage rating?

WMS

Edited 12 to a 10
Eryk the Red
Rules-as-written? Fire modes are unchanged by ammo type. So, yeah, bursts with SnS are allowed. How would I play it? The same. I have had no issues with SnS seeming unbalanced. Would it be reasonable to limit SnS, saying it cannot be fired in bursts? Probably. I wouldn't do it. But I wouldn't fault the GM that made that restriction.
Ravor
Disclaimer: I'm going to assume that the 8 or 12 was a typo and that you meant 8 or 10, if I'm wrong and you meant something else please correct me.


Well personally I'd say that the actual Impact Rating is still -1/2 down to ( Rating 2 ) before adding in the Nonconductivity ( Rating 6 ) so in the end you are looking at resisting with ( Rating 8 ) Armor.
FriendoftheDork
I house rule stickn shock to 4S, so it's not an issue to me. Still, they're better as they do halve impact armor. It won't help against spirits unless you overcome their hardened armor, but otherwise it rocks.
sunnyside
For the OP. If your GM actually allows the stuff than it makes sense in game.

However as you're seeing most GMs don't like it and tend to remove/nerf it.
djinni
QUOTE (Jack Kain @ Jun 20 2007, 12:08 PM)
You all do know they nerfed the damage down to 4S(e) in errata?

where?
Sunny I don't see why they'd remove it, or even why someone would decrease its damage output, since its just fine the way it is.
WearzManySkins
From another thread relating to the one of the issues
From Garrowolf's post:
QUOTE (Garrowolf)

Okay I decided to email Rob Boyle - the line developer for Shadowrun

We have a lovely argument going on Dumpshock that I has hoping you could help us with.

Can spirits take damage from non magical electrical damage? Can they be stunned at all for one?

QUOTE (Rob Boyle)

Yes, I would say they can take damage and their Immunity to Normal Weapons would apply. I would not reduce their Impact by half, though, since spirits don't really have armor in that sense -- the Immunity power is because they're magical and mundane attacks don't hurt them.
I would also ignore the secondary effects of Electricity damage against them, since they don't have nervous systems.

QUOTE (Garrowolf)

So there you go. This is the word from the top.
Narmio
I also removed Stick and Shock from my games. Sort of partially because it blows all other nonlethal methods out of the water, but primarily because it's silly. Silly, silly, silly.

In my campaigns it was an Ares research project that became a publically laughable failure; no means was found to reliably stop the capacitors from failing when fired out of a gun, even with reduced loads. The prototypes tended to spray people with bits of capacitor, sort of pathetic electronics shrapnel.

Maybe that's realistic, maybe it's not, maybe this thread will now become one of Dumpshock's famous "bring the gun nuts out of the woodwork" monstrosities. I hope not. But it's worked for me.
Demon_Bob
I'm not going with the modified ammo rules until S&S is changed. Although on a difficult run all the guards have Non-Conductivity 6. I mean why nerf the other ammo and not the one that everyone agrees is the most broken.
Dancer
On the subject of nonlethality, are injection rounds available? For people who think the Super Squirt is the 14th stupidest thing to ever see print?
yoippari
I would love if they put in low power injection rounds. Since the fuel and everything is self contained in the round and they are just dependent on the gun to point it in the right direction and some signal to "go" I don't see any real life reason why they wouldn't work. Might involve a bit more meat in the cartridge to hold whatever low power propellant (I'm picturing small air canister) is needed to launch it but not bury itself a couple inches in the target. I'm a bit biased right now though as one of my characters would have fun loading someone up with zen from a distance.

Re: SnS I don't like all the specialty rounds for small caliber weapons like assault rifles and even the larger pistols. I won't buy SnS or flechette for anything but a shot gun. I'll probably buy explosive at some point but it isn't that big of a difference with the newer erretas. The elephant gun I can see SnS though. There is a guy over at thefireingline.org who turned a savage 12ga action into a 12ga rifle by using modified 50 BMG cases and .72 cal "bullets". If you could put a capacitor into anything it was one of those.
Dancer
QUOTE (yoippari)
Might involve a bit more meat in the cartridge to hold whatever low power propellant (I'm picturing small air canister) is needed to launch it but not bury itself a couple inches in the target.

Why not just use a small amount of chemical propellant? If you're aiming for a certain muzzle velocity and have a barrel of a certain length your acceleration is already fixed, so cordite won't be treating the round any more brutally than compressed air would.

Flechette I see as not a spray of splinters (then you'd use spread rules) but a single bullet that shatters into blades when it hits the target. Like a frangible round only sharper.

Elephant gun would not be suitable for S&S, owing to the fact that you've blasted the shock device entirely through your target. I suppose you could use a very small charge, but that defeats the purpose of using a rifle. Shotgun rounds are 18mm across and relatively low velocity, making them ideal for the purpose.
GoldenAri
The 6S and 1/2 impact never doesn't feel broken when compared to the cost of the ammunition. The thing that makes it so damned killer effective is the electrical secondary effect. The electrical secondary effect is incredibly overpowered letting the dice choose between "dead"(figurativly) and "screwed". With my players I don't throw electrical attacks at them, and they don't throw them at me.
Critias
QUOTE (Dancer)
[QUOTE=yoippari,Jun 21 2007, 09:06 AM] Elephant gun would not be suitable for S&S, owing to the fact that you've blasted the shock device entirely through your target.

No way, man. It's right there in the rules. Stick and Shock rounds only do stun damage. He'd be fine, getting blasted point blank with a .50. They're magic, and transfer all potential energy into electrical, not kinetic.

Or, uhh, something.
Big D
I think the assumption is that all SNS rounds, no matter the weapon type, have a reduced powder charge and larger round. After all, you're trying not to kill them.

That said, it might have made more sense for them to have received modifiers, like the gel round, rather than a flat value.
Whipstitch
It's a touch exploity, yeah. Still, I love having stick 'n' shock loaded into my sleek li'l Hammerli. It has nothing to do with spirit nuking in my case though, I just find it's the best way of arming a character who's neither particularly good at concealing OR firing guns. My face uses that combination pretty much exclusively.
Big D
It's legal. It's powerful. It does stun damage.

What more could you ask for?
Ravor
For it to make sense?
Kyoto Kid
QUOTE (Dancer)
On the subject of nonlethality, are injection rounds available? For people who think the Super Squirt is the 14th stupidest thing to ever see print?

...they may see (re)introduction in Augmented provided the supplement also deals with chemtech & chemtech application. Yeah, I miss the old Narcojet, dart pistol & dart rifle. I just hope that if they bring them back it will be like the older editions that the applicable weapon class skill (eg pistols or rifles) can be used.

However, I have this horrible gut feeling they will go into that class called "Special Ranged Weapons" which will all but make them useless since a character will have to spend BPs' on each specific weapon. This is part of what nerfed the Super Squirt in SRIV along with the change from being a "true" squirt weapon to one that now effectively fires chem loaded gel rounds. The original was a great close range stealth weapon that could easily have been made from composites which wouldn't pick up on an MAD scanner.

As to S&S, I actually see them more sensible as a lighter weapon (Pistols) round. Big guns are designed to do big damage and Burst/Auto fire is meant ti augment this damage.
sunnyside
I must admit if time progresses in my game to S&S time it'd be mighty tempting to have them just be weapon DV-1 AP 1/2 electrical damage rounds instead of what they are now.
Eryk the Red
If I were to change the way SnS rounds work in my game, I'd probably do the same, Sunnyside. I'd probably also say that they cannot be fired in bursts, only in SS or SA mode. But I don't see myself actually implementing that. SnS hasn't gotten a lot of play in my game, and it hasn't been unbalancing when it has.
djinni
QUOTE (Ravor @ Jun 21 2007, 11:40 AM)
For it to make sense?

Trolls, orks, elves, dwarves, giants, cyclops, Oni, Wakyambi, Menehune, gnomes, satyrs, night elves (Drow anyone?), ghouls, vampires, banshee, and of course we can't forget changelings...
people command robots and vehicles simply by thinking about it, communicating with machines on a level they cannot with another human.
not to mention the bending and breaking of the laws of physics DAILY through sheer force of will.
dragons are president, and a postage stamp has more sensory capability than a CRT scanner, in addition to being able to hold several terrabytes of information...
and you have a problem with an electrical discharge from a paint pellet fired from a pistol?
Jack Kain
FACT: Weapons that fire a projectile to deliver an electric shock with no connecting wire exist not only in Shadowrun (such as one of the Taser weapons which uses no connecting wire).
But they exist in real life.

So to say SnS can't exist based on the laws of physicals is just plain stupid in a world of cyberware and other high tech stuff. Its also stupid because its quite possible.

Stick and Shock delivers a taser dart via a firearm instead of a taser. I can think of no reason they can't have those in 2070 let alone ten years from now. Except for electric shock weapons simply falling out of use in favor of something else.

So you can say its over powered or it makes using regular tasers pointless. But to say they simply can't exist based on your limited knowledge of science and the laws of physics is plain dumb

And I could swear I read that in the Errata they changed SnS to 4S(e) but I can't find it.

If electrical damage is do deadly wouldn't non-conductivity just be more common?
Ever member of my group has rating 6 non-conductive on are armor.
So why not put say rating 3 as standard on all security guards armor.
yoippari
The only thing that makes an elephant gun so powerful is that it has the room to hold large cases with the powder to send large bullets with enough power to make an elephant stumble. Now if you reduce the propellant, make the bullet even bigger (longer thus taking up more of the space in the case) you get something like a a 1.5 inch long one time use tazer flying through the air.

My whole justification for using that gun is that one custom job I have seen is quite literally a 12 gauge with a thick brass case instead of the normal thin brass or plastic cases commonly available. This can handle the large pressures needed to send a 12ga slug or saboted .50 (or probably saboted anything) down range really fast. Or it has enough cartidge room to send a big heavy object down range slowly. Of course something the size I'm talking about would probably do some stun damage just from the impact. And it would probably use heavy pistol ranges.
tehbighead
i strongly encourage non-lethal force in my game, as high body counts tend to draw the ire of a corp and the po-pos quite quickly. if your game is action-oriented, i could see where you'd have issues with stick and shock. elsewise, it has great utility in a story-driven game that focuses more on discretion than lethality.
Critias
QUOTE (tehbighead)
i strongly encourage non-lethal force in my game, as high body counts tend to draw the ire of a corp and the po-pos quite quickly.

That all depends on who you're killing.
hyzmarca
QUOTE (Dancer)
Flechette I see as not a spray of splinters (then you'd use spread rules) but a single bullet that shatters into blades when it hits the target. Like a frangible round only sharper.


Neither interpretation is accurate. Flechette is a small dart with tiny fins that cause it to spin in flight in order to stabilize it.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d.../Flechettes.jpg

A single flechette round would be a single dart, though this, in no way, justifies the flechettte's damage code modifiers.
FriendoftheDork
QUOTE (tehbighead)
i strongly encourage non-lethal force in my game, as high body counts tend to draw the ire of a corp and the po-pos quite quickly. if your game is action-oriented, i could see where you'd have issues with stick and shock. elsewise, it has great utility in a story-driven game that focuses more on discretion than lethality.

The problem is that there is no tradeoff. There is absolutely no reason to use regular ammo unless you really want to kill someone (instead of incapacitating them) as nonlethal means are alot better than lethal ones.

If this was the case in RL, do you really think the police would use regular ammo? No, I can even see militairy considering nonlethal means if it was more effective than lethal ones.

With a slight nerf, it's about as good as regular, which is a minimum IMO. And if you really want to do tons of stun damage there is always tasers and stun batons.
hyzmarca
The best way to discourage the use of non-lethal force is to make high-rating stimpatches standard issue. Use a biomoniter ties to an automatic application system of some sort to make the activation of the stimulants seamless. This why, the vast majority of security guards would be able to keep going even if they had full stun tracks and it essentially doubles the amount of damage the PCs have to dole out in order to incapacitate.

Personally, my feelings on non-lethal force are a little different. A team needs to kill as many people as possible so that the police and the corp goons will be afraid to come after them.
Moon-Hawk
QUOTE (hyzmarca)
QUOTE (Dancer @ Jun 21 2007, 04:26 AM)
Flechette I see as not a spray of splinters (then you'd use spread rules) but a single bullet that shatters into blades when it hits the target. Like a frangible round only sharper.


Neither interpretation is accurate. Flechette is a small dart with tiny fins that cause it to spin in flight in order to stabilize it.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d.../Flechettes.jpg

A single flechette round would be a single dart, though this, in no way, justifies the flechettte's damage code modifiers.

Ugh, we've (dumpshock) has been over this so many times.
RL flechette is exactly as you described.
In old editions of SR flechette was based on cyberpunk flechette, which is lots of tiny slivers. It's from Neuromancer, I think. Old editions of SR were much more clear in their description of what flechette was, and it was consistent with the weapon in Neuromancer.
The current edition of SR is less explicit in it's description, so you could consider it to be based on the RL or the cyberpunk description.
However, since the purpose or RL flechette is armor piercing, and the purpose of cyberpunk flechette is lots of damage but ass vs. armor, and considering the modifiers for SR flechette, well, draw your own conclusions on what it's supposed to be based on.

But yes, in the real world, flechette is exactly as wikipedia describes.
djinni
QUOTE (Moon-Hawk @ Jun 22 2007, 11:07 AM)
The current edition of SR is less explicit in it's description, so you could consider it to be based on the RL or the cyberpunk description.

the flechette rounds in the birth of cyberpunk were created before they knew what it would do, and follows the original Idea. I prefer to think of nano guided micro missiles in the shape of little pink bunny rabbits flying through the air...but that's just me...
Sterling
QUOTE (Whipstitch @ Jun 21 2007, 09:32 AM)
Still, I love having stick 'n' shock loaded into my sleek li'l Hammerli.

I'm all about SnS rounds, myself. I've encouraged non-lethal measures among my runners since day one. It just seems to me that if I was head of Security for Corp X, and two runner teams broke into building Y, but one team used lethal force and one team didn't?

I'd make finding the lethal team my priority. If it's just one team using nonlethal, they'd still try to find them, but it might not be 'shoot to kill' orders like it would if the team blew away a half dozen secguards.

I also try (with varying degrees of success) to instill the idea that the best way to make your name in SR is to do a job with the least firepower possible. If your team goes on a run and pulls it off using intelligence, tactics, and teamwork and light pistols as firearms, the street will take notice. If a similar team does it with raw firepower via assault rifles, that's not as impressive. Anyone can do it with a panther cannon, it's too easy. If you smack the troll ganger around with your fists, that's impressive. If you use a monofilament whip, that's not as impressive per se.

Plus it's fun roleplay.

BLAM BLAM BLAM!! "Freeze!! You're under arrest, boyo!!"

"Drek, it's the Star!!"

"Drop your weapons!! Oh, an assault rifle!? You're getting a nice long vacation for THIS toy, sparky! Let's see what you're using... what the FRAG!? Hey, Floyd, come look at this, it's a fragging assault rifle loaded with gel rounds, isn't that the damndest thing you ever saw!? This guy was using.. HEY, where'd they go!?"

Besides, if you're going to talk exploit-y, what's up with ambidextrous samurai (with cyberarm gyros) wielding two ingrams throwing 4 bursts a round? It makes 6Se SnS seem reasonable by comparison, neh?
Lagomorph
QUOTE (hyzmarca)
Personally, my feelings on non-lethal force are a little different. A team needs to kill as many people as possible so that the police and the corp goons will be afraid to come after them.

a very interesting perspective. thanks
KarmaInferno
QUOTE (Sterling)
"...what the FRAG!? Hey, Floyd, come look at this, it's a fragging assault rifle loaded with gel rounds, isn't that the damndest thing you ever saw!? This guy was using.. HEY, where'd they go!?"

Just a heads up...

A full-auto capable shotgun with a 20 round drum can still kill someone if you empty the drum into their chest. Even with gel rounds.

Boy, was I embarrassed.


-karma
mfb
heh. there's a reason why gel rounds, stick-and-shock, and the like are correctly referred to as less-lethal measures, rather than non-lethal.
djinni
QUOTE (hyzmarca @ Jun 22 2007, 01:23 PM)
Personally, my feelings on non-lethal force are a little different. A team needs to kill as many people as possible so that the police and the corp goons will be afraid to come after them.

they aren't afraid to come after them, they just send in the bigger guns.
Laws of equality. if you kill everybody you come across and everybody they send after you, then they are going to call in "el duche" to come whip your butt, and he's so far out of your league you don't even see it coming.
tehbighead
QUOTE (FriendoftheDork @ Jun 22 2007, 08:01 AM)
If this was the case in RL, do you really think the police would use regular ammo? No, I can even see militairy considering nonlethal means if it was more effective than lethal ones.

we're missing the point:: any weapon that deals over 6P has the sticky rounds trumped. sure, they halve the impact armor, yada yada. as previously mentioned, a few hundred nuyen for a rating 6 nonconductivity mod on your armor does wonders to curtail sticky abuse. the range of weapons that benefit from S&S is relatively small in this sense.
Ravor
QUOTE (djinni)
Trolls, orks, elves, dwarves, giants, cyclops, Oni, Wakyambi, Menehune, gnomes, satyrs, night elves (Drow anyone?), ghouls, vampires, banshee, and of course we can't forget changelings...


Its Magic...

QUOTE (djinni)
people command robots and vehicles simply by thinking about it, communicating with machines on a level they cannot with another human.


Its Cyberpunk...

QUOTE (djinni)
not to mention the bending and breaking of the laws of physics DAILY through sheer force of will.


Magic again...

QUOTE (djinni)
dragons are president, and a postage stamp has more sensory capability than a CRT scanner, in addition to being able to hold several terrabytes of information...


I think these are silly as well...

QUOTE (djinni)
and you have a problem with an electrical discharge from a paint pellet fired from a pistol?


Yep. cyber.gif

After all, its silly to introduce a technology such as Stick-n-Shock when its clear that the Yamaha Pulsar is inferior in every way with the exception that the Pulsar's ammo costs a measely 3 nuyen.gif less per round.
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